Telangana emerging economic powerhouse: KCR

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao said that formation of separate Telangana following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh had heralded a great success story.

Speaking at the India Today Conclave South-2018 here on Thursday, he attributed the initial apprehensions and misgivings on the future of people belonging to AP living in Hyderabad to vested interests. All such fears had proved to be unfounded, the Chief Minister said.

Replying to Rajdeep Sardesai who moderated the session, the Chief Minister made it clear that there was no question of regretting the split of Telugu identity at any point of time, since there was no such commonality at all. The merger of Telangana with Andhra, contested by many in the State, proved to be a failed experiment, because for Telangana, there was not much in common with Andhra. Telangana region had its own identity, culture, traditions, history or dialect, Rao said.

The Chief Minister said people who were exposed to the history of Telangana were aware of all the facts. The creation of wealth in Telangana had begun at the time of the Nizams. Many people from the north, including Rajasthan and Gujarat, and many other parts of the country, came here and worked their way to success in making wealth.

Each state should have its own reservation policy:

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Speaking at the India Today Conclave South 2018, KCR said that the 50 per cent reservation, the cap imposed by the Supreme Court, is not enough and the Centre should understand this.

Party is going to raise a big fight over reservation in Parliament. – KCR

ON NARENDRA MODIK Chandrasekhar Rao said that any chief minister has to maintain a cordial relationship with the Centre. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has talked about cooperative federalism but he is implementing it “partially”.The Telangana Chief Minister said that Centre should “devolve more funds to the state” and “allow developing states to develop further”.

ON TELANGANA vs ANDHRA PRADESH

K Chandrasekhar Rao said his state is better than Gujarat and Maharashtra in areas like manufacturing.

The Telangana Chief Minister refused classification of his state as a “small state”.

Telangana is not a small state. There are 17 states which are smaller than Telangana, we are bigger than West Bengal in land area. – KCR

He said that within six months of inception of Telangana, the state was providing 24 hour power supply to industry and for domestic needs, and 10 hours to agriculture.

Asked if there is a competition between him and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, KCR said his state is “much ahead”.

KCR ON TELANGANA AGITATION

Asked if he was nervous on June 2, 2014, the date when India’s 29th state was formed, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, whose Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) led the agitation for a separate state, said he saw it as “opportunity to reconstruct Telangana”.

He said that before the agitation was launched, there was a brainstorming session of “3,000 to 4,000 hours”. The movement was not just driven by emotion, KCR said.

The Telangana Chief Minister also dismissed talks of a split in Telugu identity post the formation of Telangana. “There was nothing like a Telugu identity. Telangana has a different identity,” KCR said, adding that separation of Andhra Pradesh “is a success”.

‘Sheep population moving bank’

Telangana had made great strides by identifying human resources with different trends. Hyderabad now was one of the big metros in the country and the world. The State used to import 650 lorries of sheep every day from Rajasthan and many other States. “We have designed a beautiful programme and started implementing it in mission mode to meet the meat needs of the State.

The State had taken a loan of Rs 5,000 crore from the NCDC and started distributing sheep units to people. The State had distributed some 38 lakh sheep and there was an addition of 13 lakh to their population with the newborn lambs. After the formation of the State there was a net addition of 50 lakh to the sheep population in the State. “It is now a moving bank”, he said.